The man seems to have been an expert skier according to the comments. I will say, yesterdays conditions were as close to perfect as one can get up there. It was a supreme spring day on the mountain and if you were choosing a day to go out, this would have been a great choice. He went out on a glorious day for what its worth. RIP

It's the all too common expert skier skis off trail and collides with tree. Just because a trail is difficult does not mean that someone, an expert who is familiar with the trail say, can't ski it fast. Condolences to his family and friends.

I just realized that I knew this guy. He worked in the rental area and would ski all the time. He was also someone I followed on Trace Snow app. On Trace, he has been number two at Sunday river for sustained speed at 74.6 mph. He told me last week the only reason he wasn't number one was because the number one guy did it by driving his car near a trail. He was an extremely fast skier who was all over that mountain.

I was at Sunday River on Tuesday and although it was nice and warm in terns of air temperature, I found it icy enough I was glad to have my Fischer GS racing skis. Most of the hill was pretty good but I was glad I had good edges underfoot. Wednesday I was at Wildcat and it was even warmer but they had ice there as well especially higher up the hill. I have recently read about ski fatalities over the season and it is a tragedy when a skier dies, more so when they are young, like the 13 year old boy at Nashoba Valley (a very gentle hill). So sad, RIP...

I was at Sunday River on Tuesday and although it was nice and warm in terns of air temperature, I found it icy enough I was glad to have my Fischer GS racing skis.

Pretty much the story of the east. My experience is that you need to have a few hours at 45* or higher to get things to start to really soften up around here. Direct sun helps a lot. (But if it's windy, all bets are off, as evaporational cooling can keep things crusty even if the air temp is 50*. I have seen this happen at the Loaf more times than I care to count.)

Sad to see. The headwall on Black Hole is the steepest section at Sunday River and almost always icy for the first couple of turns. Easy to imagine someone losing an edge and being unable to arrest the fall.

Here's a pic from the top of Black Hole. Although you can't tell from the pic it is very steep at the very top only (maybe 10 turns at 35 degrees?) with a "slight" double fall line but nothing major (nothing like upper-upper Goat) and certainly not enough that it really even enters your mind.

If you came flying over the headwall at an angle, got some air and did a crash/slide in icy conditions I could see your momentum carrying you into the woods at speed, but otherwise it would be very fluky to go into the woods on that trail.

Very sad but I would be interested to know the actual details of the crash. The guy was an alleged speed demon so I wonder if he picked the wrong time and place to push it?

I'm guessing he missed that first turn at speed. I can easily see someone familiar with the run not bothering to "pre-run the course" at slow speed, misreading the terrain in flat light, getting a little out of sorts from an unseen bump/roller/whatever and ending up in the woods .

We all cheat the possibility of death or injury every time we ski. I made a HUGE / STUPID mistake at Alta last Monday and lucked out with just a mildly bruised rib. It easily could have been me y'all are talking about and I'm mostly conservative when I'm out there. I made a point of shaking it off and skied the rest of the day - just to keep from losing my nerve.

To balance out my Karma (it's not wise to be too lucky) I sustained a knee wrenching fall the next day which made me quit for the season. I'm good to go for 2015-2016!

I'm not sure if dying is any less terrible if you do it while enjoying something you love, but I hope his family finds some solace in the situation. RIP indeed...